


Shimmer

by rashaka



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Lives, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Compulsion, Consensual Mind Control, F/M, Forced Bonding, Kissing, Resurrection, Teen Wolf Rarepair Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rashaka/pseuds/rashaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all fairness, it’s not like Derek starts out the night planning to stalk a teenage girl through the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivorygraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygraves/gifts).



> This fic takes place about two months after season 3, with the exception that Derek was never kidnapped, and the characters have been living in relative calm since the end of the Nogitsune. No spoilers for season four.
> 
> Much of the worldbuilding for certain supernatural powers in this fic owe a debt to the tv show Lost Girl. Although my version has a few key differences, Lost Girl was a defining inspiration.
> 
> Thanks go out to terapsina for being my beta reader, to thenemeton for my random messages about how hard writing is, and the folks at [the root cellar](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/twwriterschat) chat group for all their encouragement. Thank you, all!

In all fairness, it’s not like Derek starts out the night planning to stalk a teenage girl through the woods.

The green clock on his dashboard blinks well past eleven when he swings a wide corner on the highway outside the town.  This part of the road runs through the forest preserve adjacent to the Hale property.  He grew up in these woods, and if he ever rebuilds he wants future generations to have the same freedom.  Unfortunately, familiarity doesn't make them safe, especially in the recent year, and trespassers are a semi-regular problem. 

As Derek breaks to enter the turn, he sees a person disappear into the shadowy trees, headed north.  Grimacing, he brings the SUV around and pulls off the road.   With luck it’ll be some asshole out here to complete a dare.  With less luck, it'll be something gearing up to kill them all by Monday.

Derek tracks the figure on foot about a quarter of a mile off the highway, growing more confident that it’s a woman as he has the chance to observe her trek from a distance.  When she finally steps into a gap of moonlight between the trees, he easily recognizes Lydia.   She moves with purpose, dressed in sneakers and pajama pants under a thin hoodie.  It’s a cold night but from what Derek can see, the girl doesn’t even shiver.  She simply walks, one foot before the other, toward a signal only she can hear.

“Fuck,” swears Derek under his breath. He immediately regrets doing so; if there’s anything else out here besides the two of them, speech could tip off his location.  Shaking out his shoulders to loosen them in case it comes to a fight, Derek starts after the redhead, determined to head her off before she reaches the next hillside.

They pass between the oak trees for several minutes, together even while they’re paces apart.  Vigilant stalking now has Derek convinced they’re alone, but that still leaves the question of her destination.  Given the local terrain and her trajectory so far, they’ll eventually loop back toward the highway.  Lydia steps with unnerving confidence through the bracken, almost silent as an animal, all of which has Derek thinking she’s more banshee than human right now.

He grimaces, because at the end of this lovely moonlit hike there’s going to be a body.  Probably a gory one.

Torn between pity and irritation, he follows her up the hillside, around the pile of boulders where Malia’s coyote den had been, and another stretch toward his family’s old property.  They’re not too far from his car, which at least should make the upcoming nightmare slightly easier to deal with.

“Over the river and through the woods,” he mutters to the night air.  All the way to the copse of the Nemeton.

Derek hasn't been back here since he helped pull Jennifer’s hostages out of the rubble, and he’d be happy to go another ten years before he steps foot in its periphery again.  Nowadays the thing buzzes with energy that reminds him of a fractured childhood memory: black oil and bones.  The oaks stand further apart here, with the ground kept clear of brush by the seasonal wildfires.  Moonlight has all the room it needs to illuminate the open circle and the druids' indiscriminate power source within.

The naked girl sleeping on the tree stump is new.

Caught short by this incongruous sight, Derek stops behind Lydia and gapes.  He struggles to absorb the messages that come trickling through his senses: there’s blood pumping under that girl's muscled ribcage, and what looks like dirt caked under those pink, soft fingernails.  It all feels wrong, even for Beacon Hills.  They're at least six miles from the cemetery.  Whole people do not just _manifest_. 

He’d walked all this way expecting a dead body.  This one isn’t.  In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s—

“Oh my god...”  Lydia’s shaky voice rings through the air to wake anyone and everything in a half-mile radius.  “Allison?”

 

*

 

They hustle her into Derek’s truck like a smuggling victim, an operation of hushed whispers and shuffled clothing.  Allison won’t untangle herself from Lydia’s grip enough to let her drive, not that the other one can remember the path back to the highway, much less where she parked.

“It’s about time this ‘gift’ was actually good for something,” she tells Derek as she buckles the seat belt across her shivering, ash-white friend.  For her part, Allison hasn't said anything since she woke up and started crying.  Lydia pushes dirty curls out of Allison’s face and adds, “Until I opened my eyes in the grove I thought I was dreaming.”

Buckling himself in, Derek closes the driver’s side door and adjusts his mirror to catch sight of the girls in the backseat.  His eyebrows draw together as he studies them.  Lydia’s arms are bare and she’s got her hair up in a haphazard knot like she just rolled out of bed.  On the seat beside her, Allison leans into the human contact, swathed in Lydia’s sweatshirt and his own jacket.  Leaves and twigs decorate the surface of her skin, and her dark hair’s messier than a bird’s nest, but otherwise she hasn’t got a mark on her.  As he breathes in, tasting the scent of the three people in the car, Derek thinks that if this place gets any fucking weirder he’s going to move back to New York.

Then again, if he left town he’d have to sell all his property, when he finally started making income last month.  And it’s not like she’s the first person around here to rise from the grave.

The living dead girl in the back seat still smells like Allison Argent, but the scent is raw, flavored with bark and soil.  Without the remnants of metal and shampoo he remembers, the subtle layers of her humanity are exposed: skin, sweat, femininity.  He breathes in a second time, needing to be absolutely sure before he turns the key to take them all out of here, and in that moment Allison raises her head.

She meets his gaze through the mirror, and Derek looks away first.

“Sheriff’s station?” he asks Lydia.

“No,” Allison answers for her, shaking and pulling his jacket closer around her shoulders.

Concerned, and more than empathetic to the circumstances, Lydia tries a rational appeal.  “Allison, you need—”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” she cuts her off.  Her voice croaks, stumbling but picking up strength as she goes.  “The weather’s changed.  That means I was really—it means my dad won’t be here anymore.  If he’s not here, then I wanna go home with you.”

Lydia nods, drags her in for the tenth hug in as many minutes, and just like that the conversation is over.  Shrugging away the crawl of goose-bumps down his limbs, Derek throws his stick shift into first gear and pulls onto the empty eastbound highway.

 

*

 

An hour later, Allison sits folded into the couch with her legs tucked under her knees, a quilt sewn by Lydia's grandmother her only protection from the baffled stares of her friends.  In the time it took her to shower and put on clothes, practically everyone she knows piled into the living room to get a look at the dead girl.  When she'd descended the steps the conversation trickled off.  Allison doesn't know what to say with them all staring at her now like she's some kind of macabre performance art.

"I'm hungry," she complains to no one in particular, and the room explodes _._

"Jesus Christ you're alive," blurts Stiles, while his dad runs his hands through his hair and groans at the wall. 

"So is she like Peter now?"

"How do you feel, honey?  Are you having any trouble breathing?  Are you in pain anywhere?"

"If she died and came back, is she still a human?

Voices spiral into a tornado around Allison's spot on the couch: Malia, Stilinski, Melissa, Kira, even Deaton.  Why'd Lydia have to bring every single person they know?

It strikes Allison that maybe they're afraid of her.  Shouldn't they be?  On the heels of that question she wonders where Isaac is, then decides the answer is obvious: if he were in town, he'd be here.  Her dad must’ve taken him somewhere.

"How'd you know to go out and find her?"

"I already told you, I don't remember.  I was sleepwalking!"

"She looks like she's gonna faint any second." 

"Well technically, she hasn't eaten in two months."

"Actually we got food on the way; it's only been a half-hour—"

"So…did anyone raise her from the dead and just decide not to tell the rest of us?  Lydia?  Scott?" 

"Allison honey, I'm gonna get you something to eat, just stay there…" 

The noise of their chatter pounds into her skin, battering her senses.  Allison pitches forward until her head looms between her knees.  She inhales once, then again, but her stomach is all in knots and a ticklish hunger continues its persistent crawl through her insides. 

"Lydia—" she gasps.

Scott's already moving forward instead, his voice a drone of _AllisonAllisonAllisonAllison_ until two strong, warm arms pull her into an embrace.  She has just a second to reflect that he's more muscled than she remembers, until a wave of nausea distracts her.  Scott croons something reassuring, so Allison sinks into the familiar crevice between his neck and shoulder.  He'd been stone-still before, a horrified statue in the center of the group, but something about seeing her in need must have broken past his anxiety.  It always did with Scott.  A compulsion to giggle at this insight bubbles up inside Allison, but it turns into a stomach rumble that careens through her ribs like thunder.  Despite everyone talking over themselves, the supernaturals in the room pick up the sound.  Over his shoulder Allison sees Malia's eyebrows raise and Kira give a tentative smile.

"My mom's getting you something from the kitchen," Scott whispers, hugging her tight.  "I'm so glad you're alive."

His familiar protection blocks out everything for a while, and Allison longs to disappear into the sensation.  Instead, what she finds when she shuts her eyes is hollowness.  When she opens them again, her stare lands on Derek. 

Even from across the room, his focus hammers her down like a physical weight.  It doesn't matter that in his place she'd be just as skeptical, something about his callous assessment grates on Allison's already battered state of mind.  Hadn't he gotten enough entertainment from the car ride?  He's seen her naked for fuck's sake, babbling about the weather and her dad.  Now he's here in Lydia's living room, watching them like he has a right to be part of her life.

 "Come to stare at the dead girl?” she accuses beneath her breath, and satisfaction blooms in her chest when Derek goes rigid and drops his eyes to the carpet.

"Hey, no," Scott murmurs, thinking the words meant for himself.  He pulls away from Allison, and pushes a sudden plate with a sandwich into her lap.  "It's not like that.  We're glad to have you back.  Whatever's happened to you, we'll figure it out.  Here, eat this."

Seated on her other side, Lydia hums in agreement.  Lacking the energy to correct them, Allison just nods and catalogues the flavors of her sandwich: rye bread, turkey, mustard. 

The whole concoction tastes like ash, but she finishes it anyway.

 

*

 

Over the next two days, people whirl in and out of her life, landing like bombs to help with something-or-other, then vanishing into the landscape to get back to their own problems.  Allison had always imagined that coming back from the grave would be a Biblical-grade affair, but the opposite seems to have come true.  Until the Sheriff verifies her identity for legal purposes she can't go back to school, and Mrs. Martin is a gracious host.  She’s not nearly as oblivious as they’d all assumed, and smiles as only a mother can: "You can stay in our spare room.  Just rest and work on getting better.”  It makes Allison ache for her own mom, gone for almost a year.

Getting better, what a laugh that is.  Allison looks down at her hands and flexes them, watching the fingers curl.  It's hard to get better when you're constantly starving.    She's tried nearly every combination of foods in the Martin house and nothing eases the hole in her gut. 

"Maybe your dad would know what it means," Lydia suggests offhandedly as she unpacks new clothes and folds them into the guest dresser.  The idea has Allison shaking her head.  Every time they mention calling her father a great ball of terror bounces up her throat and she lashes out, insisting she's fine.  She's healthy, see?  Not a scratch to speak of; even her few freckles are gone. 

No matter if this is hell, heaven, or the real world: the last person Allison wants to face right now is her dad.   "I'll call him when I'm ready," she insists to Lydia.  "I need more time to figure out what happened to me."

"Well, it's almost eight, and I have to help Malia survive World History.  You sure you'll be okay?"

It takes a couple tries for Allison to summon a genuine smile, but she doesn't want to keep Lydia here.  When she's here, she worries.  Of course, she'd be worrying a lot more if she knew that Allison's stomach cramps had woken her up at four a.m.  and not abated since.  But Lydia certainly doesn't need to hear complaints when she's been so wonderful about it all.  The only thing Allison can handle right now is the urge to crawl back into bed and curl up on her screaming muscles until she falls asleep.

"Get out of here," she says lightly, managing a facsimile of a smirk.  "Take notes for my glorious return."

Giving into a burst of sentimentality (the third Allison has counted this morning), Lydia embraces her friend and says, "We're going to make everything okay, I promise."

"I know.  Go on, class is starting.”  When her braided bun vanishes around the door frame, Allison flops back onto her borrowed mattress.  She stares up at her borrowed ceiling in her borrowed clothes and is pretty sure she can _hear_ her insides compressing.  Her eyelids slip shut and sleep is the only thing that feels real.

The dream that greets Allison is a mesh of the familiar and the incomprehensible: she stands beside a gasoline pump, watching the person moving inside the windows of the station food mart.  When she moves her feet don't touch the ground, because one moment she's by the vehicles and the next she's pushing open the glass door while a bell rings to announce her.  Did she walk the distance?  Did she run?  Allison isn't even sure why she'd dream about a gas station, but it seems familiar, so she gives in to the wave that carries her forward.   

She stands before the clerk now; he could be her age.  Opening her mouth, she plans to ask him for a bag of ice.  The clerk—Jeremy, the name tag says—gazes at her like she could tell him she's come back from the dead and he wouldn't even care.

"Wow, you're… _beautiful_ ," he praises her.  "Tell me what you need.  I'll give you anything."

"That's good," Allison nods, and even in the dream she feels the sweep of her hair on the back of her neck.  It's kind of cold in here and the boy is shivering, just like her.

 As she smiles, the twisting in her stomach spreads up through her chest and out to her fingertips.  "Because I'm _so_ hungry."

 

*

 

It's just after nine in the morning when Derek swings into the gas station on Park and Hacienda.  This particular station has enough grim memories to make it his least favorite establishment in town, but one of his tires is low, and it's not like he keeps an air pump lying around the loft.  As he turns off the ignition and hops out, Derek doesn't notice the brown-haired figure wavering in the wind between pumps three and four.

He's slipping a quarter into the air pressure kiosk when movement in his peripheral sight pulls his attention.  Some distance off, a slim woman with disheveled clothes walks toward the station food mart.  Her gate is too smooth for a normal person, as if she drifts instead of walks.  When she finally pushes open the glass and steel door Derek catches a glimpse of her face, and the fact that she looks an awful lot like Allison Argent makes the whole thing even creepier.

Derek checks the cars in the lot: besides his SUV, there's only a blue hybrid, and it could be a twin to Lydia's.  Was she already inside?  Why weren't they in school? 

He adjusts his train of thought: Allison probably hasn't been re-enrolled yet, so Lydia would've gone without her.  The banshee isn't here.  Either Allison took it upon herself to fill up her best friend's tank with money she doesn't have, or Derek is about to find another reason to never buy his gas here again.

Shoving the remaining quarters in his pocket, Derek abandons the air pump and heads for the station proper.  He's made it halfway across the pavement when something crashes from within the confines of the store.  His amble turns into a flat-out run.  A bell clangs above him when he slams through the entry, and Derek's vision jumps from an overturned snack shelf to two entwined bodies leaning on the cash counter.

"Shit," he breathes, because one of the bodies is Allison.  Worse, her eyes shine like purple Christmas lights while she holds some squirrely boy up to her face and drains the fucking life right out of him.

Jumping over the collapsed shelf, Derek lands beside the pair and snags both teenagers by the back of the neck.  He yanks them apart, putting as much muscle into it as he would for two werewolves.  The clerk lists alarmingly to one side, his lips mottled with gray marks.  Derek barely catches him before his skull hits the counter.  He spares another half second to lay the boy down on the cold linoleum, noting the way fading wisps of violet smoke drift up between his teeth.  Then Derek is on his feet again, just in time to catch a shrieking Argent as she leaps at him.

 "Give him back!  I need him!"

The girl who'd once been a hunter tries to grapple past Derek to get to the unconscious body, and it takes everything he has to wrench off her grip and spin her back to the wall of glass door fridges.  "I'm hungry!” she snarls in his face.  He slams her wrists against the glass and shouts back twice as loud.

"Allison, listen to me!"

The violet sheen in her gaze flickers, and her breath hitches.  Seizing the distraction, Derek drives one leg between her thighs and jams his mouth to hers.  She melts against him, almost keening as she leans into it.  For a flash Derek loses track of the outside world.  Allison's right here, her shape hot against his, and she's so _beautiful._

He rips his tongue out of her mouth, panting, and doesn't have to glance down to know there's magic drifting from his lips.

"Allison, listen to my voice.”  She tries, he can see it.  She shakes her head to her left, and her pupils contract behind the shimmering color.  "Allison, listen.  You need to hear what I'm saying to you."

"Derek, I'm so hungry.”  Allison conjures the plaintive reply from somewhere deep within herself.  The sound of it makes Derek grip on her wrists loosen.  Without realizing he's doing it, his fingers twine with hers against the glass.

This is the young woman that Scott loved, that Chris gave up his mission for. Even now she's fighting through the power with everything she has.

"I know," he says, "And I'm _sorry_.  You've been starving for two days straight because we're a pack of idiots.”  They both draw breath, almost synchronized, then Derek drops his forehead to hers.  "I'm gonna help you."

Her sob slices into him like a physical wound.  "How?” 

"Feed, Allison.  Not on the kid, on me.  You need energy, so take—"

Before the he can finish she's on him, her hands breaking out of his grasp to come round his head while her hips push against his muscled leg.  Derek idly wonders if he should be concerned for the way she's almost dry-humping his thigh.  Not a heartbeat later the question is lost beneath an up-welling of desire so hot it burns down every vein and capillary.  His skin alights with her energy, and his hands climb up through Allison's hair as he tries to dive inside her lips. 

She's so beautiful, so warm and so shimmery and so _alive_.  Someone this glorious deserves all of it, everything he has left.  Derek would give her the world, the earth—his blood and his bones and the breath from his lungs.  As long as she lets him touch her, lets him close for a little while, it doesn't matter what she asks of him. 

All of it belongs to Allison: his life, his power, even his wolf.

Like tearing his heart in half, Derek lifts his lips from Allison's and cups her cheeks in his hands. 

"No.”  He forces the words out, as gentle as he can.  "Not that."

Blinking, she sways and slides off him to lean against the glass door of the fridge.  When he sees it's stocked full of energy drinks, Derek chokes down a snort of hysteria.  A tinny pop jingle trickles through the ceiling speakers, and he vaguely remembers a different song playing when he'd burst onto the scene.  What an all-round disaster this morning was turning out to be.

"Derek?” 

He looks down at Allison.  Her eyes have gone mostly brown again, but traces of violet light still shimmer at the corners like tears.  She's got one hand on the nearest fridge handle, using it to prop herself up.  "What's happening to me?"

"Can you stand?"

After a long hesitation she nods, and Derek holds up both hands.  "Stay there," he orders, and winces as he turns his back on her.  When he's not staring directly at Allison his breath comes more easily, and he gingerly steps over the body of the clerk.  He turns the boy’s head, glad to see the gray discoloration on his cheeks and mouth has nearly faded.  Derek listens for the heart beating beneath his uniform, slow but even.

At all this attention, the kid opens his eyes.  They're bloodshot, but otherwise an utterly boring shade of tan.

"What happened?  Where'd she go?"

"Who?” Derek asks.

"The girl," he slurs.  He rolls to one side, and with Derek's help, sits up.

"I don’t think there was anyone here.  Looks to me like you fainted and knocked over about ten racks of candy bars when you went.  Were you drinking last night—" Derek checks the uniform name tag, "—Jeremy?"

"No?” replies Jeremy, not sounding entirely convinced of it himself.

"Then you need to sit here for a minute.  When you're ready, call your boss, and go get checked out.  Because you fainted."

Jeremy nods, squinting at the linoleum and looking more than a little ill.  "That sounds good.  I think I'll sit here.  For a minute."

The pop song on the speakers turns over, this time to some country fusion thing, but the silence beneath it sends goose bumps down Derek's arms.  He can hear the hum of the coolers and the slosh of the slurpee machine, but no rustle of clothing.  No third heartbeat.

"You know, it's weird," Jeremy begins.  "I don't think I've ever fainted before."

"Yeah whatever," says Derek, already on his feet and scanning the empty food mart.  The girl's skipped out on him—big surprise.  Without so much as a goodbye, he leaves Gas Station Jeremy sitting on the floor of the store, and pulls out his cell phone as he stalks toward the exit.

Of course the blue hybrid's gone too; apparently even in a fugue state the oh-so-talented Allison manages to keep track of her keys.  Lydia doesn't pick up his call, and neither does Scott.  Growling at the general unfairness of his life, and not exactly feeling as steady as he had before arriving, Derek heads back toward his car.

He stops about five feet away, staring at the half-sunken rear tire.  Disappointingly, it hasn't fixed itself while he was busy making out.  One glance at the kiosk adds petty insult to soul-sucking injury: sometime in the last ten minutes, the money gauge reset itself.  If Derek wants to fill the tire, he'll have to drop another two quarters.

"Typical," he sighs, and digs into his pocket.

 

*

 

He tries half a dozen places in town looking for her before he gives up and heads home.  If Allison's really made a break for the hills then someone has to suck it up and get Chris on the phone.  Derek would rather chew sawdust and razor blades than make that call, but it's been less than three hours since he forcibly stopped the man's daughter from killing a human.  This is a job for an Argent.  Derek is so wound up in how he plans word the news that he doesn't even smell her until he slides open the door.

"Derek."

 Allison is here.  In his private living space.  Alone. 

And by all outward indicators, in her right mind again.  She juts out her chin when she reports, "I've been waiting for you."

He lets air escape his teeth, and rolls his eyes.  "Well I've been looking for you.  All morning."

She doesn't apologize, just folds her arms more tightly beneath her chest.  When he examines the full picture up close, Derek no longer sees her as a shimmery, violet creature.  Allison's beauty is human, banal: exactly the same as the day he met her.  Her hair is soft and her bottom lip eminently bitable, but none of it engenders the worshipfulness he remembers feeling when she climbed him like a tree this morning.

Okay, they're both still in one piece, so tough part first. 

"Did you encounter anyone else after you left the gas station?"

Allison shakes her head.  "No.  I went…out, but then I came here.  I haven't seen anyone."

"Small favors.”  Derek drops his keys in a bowl and strips his jacket, tossing it on one of his folding chairs.  He heads for his kitchen, an open space that picks up right on the edge of the main room, and starts to make coffee.  He listens to Allison pace about twenty feet away, and hears her heart jump before she storms in his direction.

"Why are you ignoring this?  Something happened to me, something horrible!  And you're just standing there making coffee like I didn't almost kill you a few hours ago."

He finishes up with the filter, because they're both going to need a lot of coffee for this, and turns to face her.  "I know what you did, and it wouldn't have killed me.  The clerk, probably, but not me.  You're not strong enough yet."

"Yet?” hisses Allison.  She flings her arms wide, panic tickling her words.  "So, what am I, Derek?  Some kind of vampire?  Because you evidently know _something_."

Instead of answering, Derek takes a heavy book off a nearby shelf, opens it to a page about three quarters in, and sets it on the expensive Italian-made table that divides the general area from the kitchen.  Deliberately, he slides it in her direction, then retracts his hand.

Allison takes the bait, and picks it up.  She needs less than a minute to read the short passage, then folds it shut and places it back on the table between them.

"You can't be serious."

"Your stomach isn't rumbling anymore, is it?  You feel relaxed, settled."

His cool assessment of her state makes her bristle.  "So that's the answer?  I die, then I come back, but instead of a real person I'm some kind of—of crazed sex demon?"

It would be so convenient to blame Allison for the fiasco this morning, but that's the pettier, crueler way to look at the situation, and she doesn't deserve it.  She doesn't really deserve any of this.

"You're not a demon," Derek sighs.  “And it’s obviously not constant.”  He pushes the book to one side and takes a seat.  From there he lays his right hand across the table, palm up.  "Take my hand."

 She backs up.  "I don't think so."

"Please, Allison.  Trust me.”  The eyeballing she gives him at those words could make paint peel, but eventually she takes the opposite chair.  Allowing herself one deep breath, she boldly sets her hand in his.  Derek squeezes it, his larger fingers curling over hers in what he hopes is a non-threatening contact.  Allison's fingers are long and soft, lacking the calluses an archer should bear.  Those will hopefully return with practice, like everything else she lost with her death.

After a few seconds Allison squirms, looks at their joined hands, and then checks his expression.  “I don’t get it.”

“You’re holding my hand…” he leads slowly.

“…Yes…?”  Allison stretches the word out like she’s talking to an imbecile.

“…and we’re both still in our chairs,” Derek finishes.  “You’re not using your power on me, and no one’s brains are scrambled.  You follow?  It’s _not_ constant.”

Abruptly, Allison pulls her hand from his and folds it with her other one in her lap.  “Fine.  So you’re saying I’m safe to be around.”

He wants to stop the skeptical expression that crosses his face, but he’s always been shit at poker.

“What?”

Hedging his tone, Derek says, “Be careful who you get close to.  Feeding you apparently means physical intimacy.”  He deliberately lets his eyes slide away from hers, then adds, "At least now we know it doesn’t take sex.”

Derek rises to pour the coffee while he lets all the implications of that statement settle into the air.

 Allison takes the proffered drink, dumps in enough sugar to make his teeth hurt, and hunches over the cup like it’s her last precious thing on earth.  Standing back, Derek leans against his counter and watches her.  For someone recently deceased, he thinks she’s never looked as vibrant as she does sitting before him now.  Maybe it’s that she’s finally sated, or maybe it’s that every part of Allison seems so… new.  He’s never seen someone change this way, not even Peter, and it piques Derek’s intellectual curiosity.

Catching his guileless stare over her coffee mug, Allison asks, “What is it now?”

Derek holds her gaze and replies levelly, “You know this is going to keep happening.” 

 Allison starts to roll her eyes and glance away, but Derek pushes on.  “Whatever brought you back had to completely alter your body to do it.  You even move differently.  You’re stronger than you were as a human, and maintaining that power has a price.”

After a loaded hesitation, Allison's next question is quiet, like she doesn’t even want an answer: “So how do you know I’m me?”

“You smell just like Allison smelled.”  When she inhales sharply, Derek continues as if he doesn’t blithely know something that deeply personal about her body.   “I’ve only read about a succubus a few times in my life, and never met one.  Well, until today.  Hopefully you’ll find some middle ground with your power, but until then you need to feed.  Regularly.”

“No.”  He can tell from her expression that Allison’s already jumped ahead to the real kicker.  “No _way_ ,” she protests.

 “If you don’t eat, you’ll lose track of reality again, and when the hunger gets too much you’ll start draining people, maybe killing them.  Then even Scott won’t be able to protect you when the hunters come.  Probably the Calaveras, now that your dad’s in France.”

“This is not happening.”  Allison pushes her coffee mug across the table and stands up, her arms shaking.  “I’m not gonna use _you_ , of _all_ people, like some kind of snack time juice box.”

She doesn’t mention that feeding on him will involve some degree of kissing him, and Derek’s in no rush point it out again.  If he closes his eyes he can still feel the way her fingers pressed into his shoulders.  Her mouth had moved over his as if the world could fall apart around them and Allison wouldn’t care.  As he runs through the memory for what has to be the millionth agonizing time today, Derek can confidently sort out which parts are from her eerie, violet-hued compulsion.  The loss of identity is unnerving in hindsight.  He understands the con now, but had limited ability to stop it from affecting him at the time.

Unfortunately, knowledge is no guarantee of resolution.  While the feeling of obsessive adoration for Allison couldn’t be further from his current mind, there’s nothing to keep him from remembering their physical contact.  Derek knows all too much about the way his hands fit around her waist.  The little noises Allison made as she tried to be closer to him, the fall of her hair against the side of his cheek, and the scent of her excitement… he couldn’t forget those if he tried.

Taking a last swig, Derek steps away from the counter, setting his mug down and fully facing her.  “I know you barely trust me—” Allison snorts.  “But I’m the strongest werewolf in Beacon Hills after Scott.  I’ve also been aware of myself and my abilities for a lot longer than all of you.  I’ve got energy to spare, and you’ll need it.”

For the first time since she’s been back, Allison sounds like a snide teenager when she says, "Aren't you worried I'll kill you too?"

"If you wanted to kill me, someone like you could do it from a distance any time you want."

With nothing to say after that accusation, a few seconds of pregnant silence pass between them.  But Allison's always been quick, and she gives Derek an appraising once-over.

"Are you're saying you weren't affected by it?"

He shrugs, because there’s no point denying what they both remember.  "I was."

"So if I hadn't magicked your brain you wouldn't be suggesting this at all."

"The thrall ended when you stopped touching me, Allison.  I pulled us both out of it, and I’ll do it again, until you learn to feed without compelling someone.  I _can_ help you."

Before she can reply, the huge door to the loft slides open halfway, and Lydia marches in.  She zeroes in on her target, then pulls the other girl into a hug.  "I got your voicemail and left fifth period early." 

"Lydia.”  Allison says the name like it’s a confession.  “Something happened today.  I know what—Derek found out what I am." 

Shaking her head, Lydia links Allison's hand in hers, and tugs her to the exit.  "Tell me everything in the car.  I'm taking us to Starbucks." 

"Alright." 

As they go, Derek listens to their heartbeats.  He picks out Allison's: it's strong, alive.  Regular as a heart should be.  He holds on to that sound, examining it till the girls fade into mere footsteps down the stairs.

 

*

 

The next day's afternoon finds Allison’s feet dangling over Lydia's bed as she flips through a crusty old book.  Lydia sits with her back against the headboard, a volume in her own lap.  They were part of a small set on loan from Dr.  Deaton.  He'd made no guarantees they'd have any valid information on succubi, but it was a start.  They already knew the Argents hadn't put anything in the family beastiary about it.  Allison is quite the rare specimen. 

"So...” Lydia drawls as she turns a page.  "I know you said you aren't hungry anymore now that you've nibbled on Derek—" 

"Lydia!" 

"But seriously, how does that work?  Do you still taste real food?" 

With a grunt, Allison smacks her book shut and rolls onto her back.  "It's like being full off a whole pizza, except this time it's completely good for you.  Like you’re drinking happiness that somehow makes you strong.   I’ve never felt so _charged_." 

"And all this from the life energy you pulled directly out of the mouths of Derek and the gas station clerk.  Efficient.”  Lydia says the last part like it's a compliment.  "Yet you still drink water?" 

"And soda, iced mocha, whatever.  I can taste the food, it's just...muted.  And I don't get nourishment from it.  Everything's kind of bland on my tongue except for liquids." 

With a deep breath like a soldier headed into battle, Lydia slides down the mattress until she's level with Allison.  They lay face to face, and Allison shuts her eyes because she already knows what's coming. 

"I think you should take Derek up on his offer." 

"Lydiiiiaaaaaa...” she whines.  "Do you know what you're suggesting?"

Shrugging, Lydia twirls a lock of Allison’s hair around her finger.  "So you might have to make out with him a few times.  That's not like it's an onerous sacrifice.  He's what, twenty-four?  Twenty-five?  And his apartment is very neat, that's a good sign." 

"Lydia, he bit my mom.  And she died." 

Tears prick Allison's eyes, because she hasn't talked about it in a long time and just the memory of seeing her dad in the hospital corridor makes her throat close up.  She meets her best friend’s sympathetic expression with a rough attempt at a smile.  "I miss her, Lydia.  She could have gone through something just like this, if she'd lived.  We could have talked about it and she'd tell me how to go one day to the next."

Hesitation holds Lydia's tongue for a minute, but eventually delicate determination takes over.  "Allison, what if he's trying to make up for some of that now?  He can't fix what happened last year, but he can help you survive this.  You should let him help you."

She doesn't say if she ever wished someone had come to her with that kind of open-ended promise to make it all better.  Allison knows not to push back any more right now, and wipes her eyes.  Blinking away a sob, she scoots closer until her back is snug to her best friend.  Lydia wraps her arms around her, and they stay that way on the quilt for a long time.

 

*

 

Allison makes it a whole n'other day before she picks up her cell phone and scrolls through the contact list.  Derek’s phone number is one of a dozen Lydia programmed into it when she handed over the prepaid flip-phone.  Now Allison opens a new message and types something as brief and impersonal as she can, given the circumstances.  Then she flips the device closed and jams it into her handbag with more emphasis than is probably necessary.

About an hour later she’s ready to crawl out of her skin.  The contentment from their encounter at the gas station waned sometime early this morning, so all day she’s been pretending she’s not ravenous enough to eat a horse.  With Mrs. Martin at work and Lydia off to collude with Deaton, Allison has the house to herself.  When the door buzzes, she wrings her hands.  Unwilling to actually open it and face the sight of Derek standing on the doorstep like some kind of fucked up date, she shouts for him to come in. 

“Allison,” he says mildly as he joins her in the foyer.  That’s all he says.  Allison bites her lip, and finally sighs. 

“You were right.” 

Derek raises one eyebrow.

“I do need help.  Your help.” 

“Glad to hear it,” he says, but then gets a weird expression on his face like he’d rather not have phrased it that way.  “I’m glad you’re willing to let me help,” he corrects himself.  He glances around, sees a series of hooks on one wall, and removes his jacket to hang it.  It might be the exact same jacket she'd tucked over her waist the night they'd found her asleep at the Nemeton.

Allison can’t stop herself from watching the undulation of his shoulder muscles as he strips off the black leather.  Nor can she help the wave of irritation that comes from seeing him do something so human and domestic.  Derek Hale being polite?  Wrong wrong wrong.  Practically all her experiences with this werewolf have been hallmarked by violence and fear.  Allison knows it’s childish, but she dislikes thinking of Derek as a guy who actually hangs up his coat when he enters a friend’s home. 

“How do you feel?” he asks when they’ve both stood for a while staring at each other.  

“Like I could eat a dinosaur,” Allison admits.  His cool expression breaks for a second, like he wants to smile, but he tamps it down.   He inhales, squares his shoulders, and strides up to her.  Allison feels like she’s barely had time to blink before she’s eye level with his collar. 

“It’s okay,” Derek says quietly.  “You can do this.”   Allison steps forward the final distance, raising her eyes to catch his.  She’s never paid attention before, but they’re a vivid green framed by night-black lashes.  

It’s easy to ignore how attractive someone is when you’re preoccupied with loathing their existence.  Having Derek offer himself up to her this freely just serves to drive the point home that she’s never once seen him for what he is.  Kate’s wicked laughter dances through her memory: _“Isn’t he beautiful?”_  

This situation might be ten kinds of wrong but okay, sure, Allison gets the appeal. 

She places one hand to his cheek, and guides him down closer to her level.  Maybe she can do this without actually doing it.  Since Derek seems content to let her control the experiment, Allison stops just short of his lips.  Her hand drops to flex and fist at her side.  She stays a breath away and watches violet gradually bloom in the corners of his eyes. 

Derek’s shoulders drop a little, and at that moment the taste of his energy flickers over her tongue.  It’s meager, like drips from a water bottle when she’d prefer to gulp the whole canteen.  But even this faint trickle of power sends electricity right down Allison’s spine to make every muscle shiver. 

They stand together that way for a minute or two, breathing in silence.  Her memory of the gas station is a frazzled, some kind of half-lucid nightmare she’d rather not examine closely.  Yet somehow even her impression of that encounter with the boy—and then with Derek—doesn’t feel the way this does.  It’s as if Allison can wind her hands around what she needs yet can’t quite grasp it.  

“Allison.”  Derek’s voice, so close, sears into her.  Allison lifts her stare from his lips and sees him deliberately meet her gaze, then look way.  He affixes his eyes on the wall.  They’re already his again: whatever hints of violet that had been pooling in them now forced out by gleaming werewolf blue.

The tether of their connection wavers, and she’s still so _hungry_.

“Allison,” he repeats.  Derek keeps his attention on the wall and enunciates every word.  “I know you don’t want to touch me.  This is hard.  But if you don’t take what I’m offering, you’ll starve.” 

Her fingernails pinching into her palms, Allison looks at the man before her and struggles to understand him.  What is he doing here?  Why the hell is he standing in Lydia’s living room trying to convince a dangerous, undisciplined creature-person that it’s a good idea to suck out _more_ of his life energy? 

Why the fuck would he help a hunter at all?

“I am a hunter,” Allison says, and as the words leave her mouth she knows they’re still true.  The Oni’s sword can’t take that from her, and neither can the Nemeton.  “My family hurt yours.  I've taken from you.  So why are you doing this, Derek?” 

“Your dad once said he wasn’t my enemy.  It’s true.”  The line between his eyebrows softens as he speaks, and she can’t look away from his expression in profile.  “When Deucalion came after my pack, you saved us.  I know you probably did it because Scott was there, but that doesn’t change the fact that you came.  I nearly died that night, but thanks to you Boyd and Cora lived a little longer.” 

“You don’t owe me,” she begins.

“It’s not about debt,” he interrupts.  He still won’t meet her gaze, but Allison’s beginning to realize that he’s doing it so she’ll know he means what he says.  Derek wants her to understand that he’s giving her this (giving himself) while in control of his own mind and body.

He deliberately unclenches his fists, spreading out the fingers to flex in the air.  There’s only half a foot between them, but Derek’s voice still surprises her with its kindness. 

“You’re a good person, Allison.  You’re brave, and good people love you.  You deserve a chance.  You deserve to _live_.”

First one, then the other: Allison places a hand on each of his bearded cheeks.  She turns his face down to meet her gaze.  When the change happens, it’s stunning up close: the electric blue of each iris glimmers, then recedes.  It leaves in its wake Derek's lovely, human shade of green.

“Thank you,” she whispers. And then, she kisses him. 

There’s a moment where it’s just the two of them.  Her lips are open to his, and the warmth of their two bodies raises something inside Allison that she hasn’t felt months, not even before her death.  

When the power hits, every coherent thought Allison had vanishes in a blink.  It’s not a tide of energy, it’s a fucking _hurricane_.  

Kissing isn’t enough, even standing isn’t enough.  She grinds her fingers through Derek’s short hair and practically mewls when he grabs her waist with both hands.  His palms are a source of hot, overwhelmingly masculine contact that she can feel even through her cotton top.  They move backward unison, one heart and one body, till the couch hits the back of her knees.  Derek hoists her up like she’s no heavier than a kitten and Allison wraps her legs around his thighs so he can’t escape.

“You’re beautiful,” he fumbles the words out when she breaks from their kiss to gasp for air.  “Every part of you.  I love your skin, I love your hair.  I love the way you smell when you walk in a room.” 

“Tell me,” she moans.  The world’s gone violet somehow; Derek is all she can see and all she can feel.  Sheer power races across her skin.  It’s more than being drunk, or high—it’s like the universe has come alive in every cell of Allison’s body.  

She is soaring. 

“You smell like the earth and the leaves,” Derek gasps between kisses.  “Even with all the metal and the chemicals of the town on your skin, I can still smell what’s underneath.  You’re beautiful.  I want to keep you.  Please, let me keep you.” 

And Allison wants to.  Oh god, she fucking wants to.  Not only does she want him to keep her, she wants Derek to spin her onto the couch, push up her skirt, and press inside her until there’s no space left between them.  She wants to consume this man, swallow him up until he’s completely hers. 

“Please.”  He doesn’t ask her, he begs her.  “Please let me in.”  

She almost says yes, and that temptation is enough to fling Allison violently back to real world.

“Derek,” she growls, grabbing his face and pulling away.  “Close your eyes.”

He freezes, hands still blazing against her thighs where the edge of her skirt rides up.  As his eyes close, he unpeels his fingers and lifts his palms away.  Allison releases him and Derek takes one step back, then a second. 

He licks his lips.  As she watches him do it, wisps of something purple drift from his mouth.

“Derek?”

“Give me a minute,” he rumbles, holding up one hand and moving to lean against the arm of the couch.  “Just… a minute.”

Lacking any better idea, Allison sits down.  She feels full, almost bursting at the seams, but not heavy.  It’s like being filled with light, or air.  She could run ten miles and then swim another five.  The difference from her mood this morning is dizzying.  She glances at Derek, in a mind to thank him, but the words die on her tongue. 

Derek’s standing about four feet away, head tilted as he watches her.  She stiffens under the examination, feeling picked apart by his stare, but even Allison knows that a complaint about personal invasion would sound pretty ridiculous coming from her end.  The sheen of violet magic is washed clean from his eyes, and he looks ordinary again. 

Well, as ordinary as someone like him can ever look. 

“Thanks,” she manages.  “I do feel better." 

“Good.”  Derek nods, still looking at her.  “Good,” he repeats, almost to himself more than Allison.  

Without saying goodbye, he pivots on one heel and strides out.  He’s gone completely before she can even remind him to get his coat.

Swinging her feet up on the couch, Allison stares at the room’s high ceiling fan.  She’ll have to make up something to tell others; she’d managed to make Lydia swear to keep the succubus thing a secret, but eventually they’re all going to wonder why she keeps making out with Derek every couple days.  

If one can call what just happened ‘making out’. 

So this is Allison Argent’s life now.  Wake up naked in the woods, scare the pants off everyone she knows, and almost kill a hapless bystander.  Borrow her best friend’s clothes, avoid calling her dad, then get uncomfortably close to a man she probably shouldn’t. 

Wash, rinse, repeat. 

“I guess it’s true,” Allison sighs to the empty house.  “You really can't go home again.”

**Author's Note:**

> End of Part One.


End file.
